and parched cicers (corn) in the self same day.". Would an inspired writer say, as if he had been recording some very important matter, that the manna ceased after they had enjoyed a desert of cicers? If not, the word kali must refer, not to cicers or any other pulse, but to parched corn, as it is properly rendered in our translation, an article of great importance in the daily sustenance of that people. The justice of these remarks is fully verified by the list of provisions which the nobles of Israel, on the other side of Jordan, sent to David, when he fled before his son Absalom, in which parched corn and parched pulse are mentioned in different parts of the statement, and as distinct articles: "They brought wheat, and barley, and flour, and parched corn, and beans, and lentiles, and parched pulse,"e to which class the cicer belongs; therefore, they cannot be reckoned the same, without charging the inspired historian with an idle tautology. Nor is it reasonable to suppose, that he meant the flour of dried or parched grain; for why then does he continue to call it corn? When reduced to flour or meal, it is no longer in the state of corn, and is never, in any writing that has the least pretensions to accuracy, called by that name. In the same passage, the sacred writer distinguishes the wheat and barley from the flour of these grains; what satisfactory reason then can be assigned for his calling the flour of dried or roasted grain, by the strange and deceptive name of parched corn? Is it not much more natural to suppose, the reason is, because it was roasted in the ear, and eaten in that state? This accords with fact; for Hasselquist actually saw roasted ears of corn eaten to dinner in Palestine. It is not meant to deny that they d Josh. v, 11.

e 2 Sam. xvii, 28.

used flour of parched corn; this they frequently did; but they never called it parched corn, but uniformly gave it the appropriate name of flour.

f

In preparing their victuals, the orientals are, from the extreme scarcity of wood in many countries, reduced to use cow dung for fuel. At Aleppo, the inhabitants use wood and charcoal in their rooms, but heat their baths with cow dung, the parings of fruit, and other things of a similar kind, which they employ people to gather for that purpose. In Egypt, according to Pitts, the scarcity of wood is so great, that at Cairo they commonly heat their ovens with horse or cow dung, or dirt of the streets; what wood they have, being brought from the shores of the Black sea, and sold by weight. Chardin attests the same fact; “The eastern people always used cow dung for baking, boiling a pot, and dressing all kinds of victuals that are easily cooked, especially in countries that have but little wood;" and Dr. Russel remarks, in a note, that "the Arabs carefully collect the dung of the sheep and camel, as well as that of the cow; and that the dung, offals, and other matters, used in the bagnios, after having been new gathered in the streets, are carried out of the city, and laid in great heaps to dry, where they become very offensive. They are intolerably disagreeable, while drying, in the town adjoining to the bagnios; and are so at all times when it rains, though they be stacked, pressed hard together, and thatched at top.' These statements exhibit, in a very strong light, the extreme misery of the Jews, who escaped from the devouring sword of Nebuchadnezzar: "They that feed delicately, are desolate in

f Russel's Hist. vol. i, p. 38.

"h

B P. 104.

h Clarke's Harmer, vol. i, p. 45, note by the editor.

the streets; they that were brought up in scarlet, embrace dunghills." To embrace dunghills, is a species of wretchedness, perhaps unknown to us in the history of modern warfare; but it presents a dreadful and appalling image, when the circumstances to which it alludes are recollected. What can be imagined more distressing to those who lived delicately, than to wander without food in the streets? What more disgusting and terrible to those who had been clothed in rich and splendid garments, than to be forced by the destruction of their palaces, to seek shelter among stacks of dung, the filth and stench of which it is almost impossible to endure. The dunghill, it appears from holy writ, is one of the common retreats of the mendicant, which imparts an exquisite force and beauty to a passage in the song of Hannah: "He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory." The change in the circumstances of that excellent woman, she reckoned as great, (and it was to her not less unexpected) as the elevation of a poor despised beggar, from a nauseous and polluting dunghill, rendered tenfold more fœtid by the intense heat of an oriental sun, to one of the highest and most splendid stations on earth.

The custom of baking their bread with dung, serves also to explain and illustrate the charge which Jehovah gave to the prophet Ezekiel, to prepare or bake his bread with such fuel. To display, by a most significant emblem, the extreme misery and wretchedness of his people in their dispersion, he receives a command to bake his bread with human excrement; but in answer to his earnest entreaties, he obtains permission to use cow dung. Had * Ezek. iv, 12.

i Lam. iv, 5.

VOL. III.

j 1 Sam. ii, 8.

F

k

cow dung been ordered at first, it would have by no means sufficiently explained those necessities, and that filthiness in their manner of living, to which the captives were to be reduced among the rivers of Babylon; because many orientals use cow dung in baking their bread: he is therefore commanded to make use of human dung, as some nations of the east are actually compelled to do.' And although the command was afterwards mitigated, the end in view was obtained; a fearful picture of the misery in which the captive Jews were to linger out their wretched years, was placed under the eye of that stubborn people. Even the bread prepared with cow dung, is extremely disagreeable. D'Arvieux complains of the foetid smell emitted by their cakes; and Tournefort avers, "it is almost inconceivable what a horrid perfume this dung makes in the houses; every thing they eat has a stench of this vapour. It is evident from these facts, that the prophet was not commanded, as Voltaire alleges, to eat human ordure, mingled with his victuals, but only to use it as fuel. This had certainly communicated a most nauseous taste to the bread: yet several nations of Caucasus, that have very little fuel of any kind, submit to it every day. But if it is not inconsistent with the majesty of God, to reduce a portion of his rational creation to such painful circumstances, it could not be inconsistent to lay that command on Ezekiel for a few months."

Dung is used as fuel in the east only when wood cannot be had; for the latter, and even any other combustible substance, is preferred whenever it can be obtained. The inhabitants of Aleppo, according to Russel, use I Sandy's Trav. p. 85. m P. 193, 194. " See Taylor's Calmet, vol. iii. • Harmer's Observ. vol. i, p. 459, Dr. Clarke's note.

thorns and fuel of a similar kind, for those culinary purposes which require haste, particularly for boiling, which seems to be the reason that Solomon mentions the "crackling of thorns under a pot," rather than in some other way. The same allusion to the use of thorns for boiling, occurs in other parts of the sacred volume: Thus the Psalmist assures the wicked, "Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath." The Jews are sometimes compared in the prophets to "a brand plucked out of the burning;" a figure which Chardin considers as referring to vine twigs, and other brushwood which the orientals frequently use for fuel, and which, in a few minutes, must be consumed if they are not snatched out of the fire; and not to those battens, or large branches, commonly distinguished by that name in those regions, which will lie a long time in the fire before they are reduced to ashes. If this idea be correct, it displays in a stronger and more lively manner the weakness of Israel and Joshua the high priest; the extreme danger to which they were exposed, and the seasonable interposition of Jehovah, than is furnished by any other view of the phrase. The same remark applies to the figure by which the prophet Isaiah describes the sudden and complete destruction of Rezin, and the son of Remaliah; only in this passage, the firebrands are supposed to be smoking; that is, in the opinion of Harmer,

having the steam issuing with force from one end, in consequence of the fire burning violently at the other, by which they are speedily reduced to ashes:" The words of the prophet are," Take heed and be quiet; fear not, neither be faint-hearted, for the two tails of these smoking

P Amos iv, 11. Zech. iii, 2. Harmer's Observ. vol. i, p. 460.